Trans Care Scandals Imply Human Rights Violations

Concerns from a political detransitioner

On the trans issue, I was originally non-binary. 

The liberal in me was torn. Since I wish for others to live as they please, I would never forbid adults to alter their bodies however they see fit. Basic tolerance made my further views irrelevant. 

Psychological research has proven temperaments to vary strongly across the sexes. 

There are feminine biological males and masculine biological females. To such individuals, rebelling against stereotypes is a natural part of self-development. Any authentic expression thereof should not just be tolerated but celebrated. 

The same goes for children. 

But a problem has emerged. 

Children, by definition, do not know their identities yet. They may switch from princess to parent to pirate – in a single afternoon. It is therefore precarious to set their physical appearance in stone prior to their coming of age.

Coming to terms with who you are is a turbulent process in itself, let alone for those who carry trauma. 

In previous decades, troubled teens dressed up as goths, punkers, and emos. Often, identity is a mechanism for the young to rebel against their elders. It is countercultural. 

The language of challenging gender stereotypes used by LHBTQIA+ members is rooted in a similar spirit.

That is not to say rebellion is the bedrock of the movement, but it is indisputably influenced thereby. The point of being young is experimenting with identity until you find one befitting you. As a result of risk-taking, mistakes may be made. 

The scientific literature on trans care is murky, and likely influenced by political undercurrents. 

However, it demonstrates a share of transgender children will grow out of it:

• In 2013, a follow-up study by the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam claimed that somewhere between 65 and 94 percent of transgender kids eventually ceased to identify as such. 

• A 2016 paper in International Review of Psychiatry summarized ten follow-up studies which indicated that childhood gender dysphoria is correlated with being gay, lesbian, or bisexual and that for 85.2% of children, it remits around puberty.

• A 2020 paper in the Linicar Quarterly noted that high-quality data in favor of surgical transitions is deficient, and that it is unclear whether its primary goal of suicide prevention is achieved.

• A 2020 paper in Child and Adolescent Mental Health highlights that although protocols for persisters in transitioning are extensive, there are no protocols for desisters – even though they are estimated to form a majority.

• A 2021 study published in Front Psychiatry found that 87.8 percent of boys desisted from identifying as transgender in the long term.

• A contrarian 2022 study in American Academy of Pediatrics, concluded ‘retransitioning’ to be infrequent, yet still a phenomenon. 

• A 2023 literature review in Archives of Sexual Behaviour warned that the current mental and medical needs of gender dysphoric patients are unclear since its study remains in its infancy. 

• A 2024 study in Archives of Sexual Behaviour, stressed that detransitioners report dramatic mental health improvements, partially because they mistake personal trauma for gender dysphoria.

Whether a large or small percentage, it is now unquestionable a substantial amount of minors are being transitioned against their well-being. 

If these kids are of any priority, this must be prevented. Maybe you were a goth kid, but as an adult, you are not obliged to keep the grotesque eyeshadow. The consequences of (de-)transitioning are much more severe. 

Recent investigative reports are more worrisome still: 

Last month’s WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) Files, a report on malpractice by influential transgender health professionals, have revealed kids not seldomly are unaware of what they get into. 

The therapists and doctors of WPATH are on record admitting that children regularly do not understand – and therefore cannot consent to – treatments. This includes puberty blocking, hormone therapy, and surgical transitioning, which often have irreversible consequences. Yet, they continue to be administered. 

The WPATH Files

The recent Cass Review, a report for the National Health Service on gender care for youth, equally advises caution. 

It notes that children’s identities are too fluid to warrant permanent medical intervention. It also scrutinizes WPATH’s guidelines, alleging they ‘lack developmental rigor’. This means that solely affirming children’s expressed identities (instead of also testing them) is unjustifiable.

It marks a betrayal of the Hippocratic Oath. 

The medical professionals involved are supposed to do no harm. Yet, the WPATH Files describe them as inflicting the loss of sexual function, sterility, and even death. As to the survivors, some of them will carry lifelong regret. 

Regret, and: a feeling of betrayal. 

Because it is not just a duty to the adults in the room to steer children towards right decisions, but also away from wrong ones. Transitioning may prove fatal to their happiness. These reports demonstrate trans care does not only require tolerance; but also caution.

Tolerance is a progressive value; caution is a conservative one. 

Both, however, are virtues. And the evidence increasingly warrants the latter. If children are transitioned without consent – which, as WPATH admits, they often cannot give – it blatantly violates their bodily autonomy.

One may thus conclude their human rights have been violated.

The United Nations stresses the right to bodily autonomy in defense of transgender individuals. Strangely, they do not mention its relevance to detransitioners at any point - all the while research suggests they could be in the majority. To them, some identities seem more equal than others.

Still, considerable arguments for human rights violations against detransitioners can be made:

• By inflicting harm upon them, the administrators of these procedures may have infringed upon children’s core right to life, liberty, and the security of person, as listed under Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). 

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• By medically experimenting on them without their free consent, the administrators of these procedures may have infringed upon their right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, as listed under Article 7 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

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• By acting against their interests, the legal, administrative, and social welfare institutions condoning these procedures may have failed to uphold the best interests of children as a primary consideration, as listed under Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

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• By allowing for harm by those with the care of the children, state governments may have failed to take all appropriate measures to protect them from injury, neglect, and maltreatment, as listed under Article 19 of the UNCRC.

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• By neglecting children’s health, state governments may have failed to uphold their right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard thereof, as listed under Article 24 of the UNCRC.

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Virtually all Western nations have ratified the ICCPR and the UDHR. The UNCRC has been ratified, among others, by the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. Although not ratified by the US, it did sign the latter.

Some scholars even reference minors’ rights to bodily autonomy to argue the inviolability of their genital integrity.

This is originally concerned with circumcision. But, it may equally apply to the nonconsensual medical transitioning of minors. If their genital integrity is indeed inviolable, and if they indeed cannot consent, any infringing procedure thereupon marks a clear violation of human rights.

These facts force one to detransition: politically. 

Tolerance is among the great liberal virtues. But, somewhere down the road, it devolves into neglect. ‘Live as you please’ then becomes ‘Anything goes – even harming innocents.’ If adults wish to make life-altering decisions, power to them; but they should not impose those decisions on the young.

Children should, to some degree, be protected against their own whims. 

Pandering to their creativity – or ‘gender expression’ – is fine so long as they are not put at risk. Currently, they are. When a child believes it is a bird and runs towards the balcony, one might call its final chirping identity expression. 

The last thing one should do is sing its praises as it jumps off the edge. 

The playful spirit of the young should be cherished. But children inherently cannot make adult decisions. That is why they cannot gamble away money at casinos. 

Yet, nowadays they do gamble: at the gender health clinic. 

This should primarily be regarded as a medical scandal. 

The rest is secondary. The Cass Review stresses the risks of malpractice but rightfully leaves the cultural debate to the reader. Although I empathize with the transgender movement, I will do the same in this article. 

The definitions of men and women are a separate issue from whether doctors should administer damage to minors with impunity. 

The wish to spare children this fate cannot be equated with transphobia; only with common sense. Masculine biological females deserve a right to express themselves. But, so do feminine ones. 

If women are wrongfully deprived of their biological functions, it should be decried by ‘cis’ and trans alike. 

The ‘culture war’ revolves around the supposed validity of the transgender identity. Let it. It is irrelevant. 

What matters is that kids are getting hurt.

Legal, psychiatric, and medical institutions in the West are cooperating – in many cases inadvertently – to tarnish the lives of minors. 

This should be intolerable to whoever retains a shred of humanity. A society that sits idly by while its children are maimed, is irredeemable. The slightest civility requires intervention. 

Either this wrong is reversed, or the decades ahead will be characterized by that excuse defining the willfully blind:

‘We did not know…’